February 25, 2008	Monday	Safar 17, 1429

HAVANA: Cuba’s National Assembly met on Sunday to pick a successor to Fidel Castro after almost 50 years in power, with his brother Raul well placed to take the helm in a historic power shift and keep Cuba locked on the communist path.

The assembly began a meeting in its landmark session with Raul Castro looking on.

In defiance of US-led calls for democratic change, Fidel Castro ruled out any betrayal of the Cuban revolution in the days leading up to the vote, which will trigger some political readjustments even as the transition bears the existing leader’s imprint.

“The end of one era is not the same thing as the beginning of an unsustainable system,” he wrote in an editorial in official media on Friday.

The only place in need of transformation was the United States, he said, arguing that “Cuba had changed some time ago, and will continue on its dialectical path.” On Saturday, Castro wrote in another editorial that he was eagerly awaiting a “transcendental decision” of the National Assembly, and took a potshot at the US-based Organisation of American States, which does not allow Cuba to be a member due to its lack of democracy.

Castro, who still heads the island’s Communist Party, called the grouping a “dumpster.” In an announcement on Tuesday that immediately became a milestone in Cuba’s revolution, the frail, 81-year-old icon quashed speculation that he would retake the country’s helm he ceded “temporarily” to Raul, now 76, on July 31, 2006, shortly after he underwent surgery.

The decision paved the way for the recently elected Assembly to most likely designate Raul Castro to head the 31-member Council of State for the next five years and officially fill his brother’s shoes as president.

But the communist legislature could choose to bring a younger generation to power, with Vice President Carlos Lage, 56, and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, 42, mentioned as possible heads of state.

Lage played a key role in economic reforms that helped Cuba edge out of a deep crisis in the 1990s caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, then its main financial backer.

His current job as secretary of the executive committee of the Council of Ministers is similar to the post of prime minister.

The 614-member assembly will also choose in a secret vote the country’s first vice president, five other vice presidents, a party secretary and the other 23 members of the Council of State.

After years in Fidel’s charismatic shadow as Cuba’s number two and defence minister, Raul would face massive challenges if selected: dismantling a monolithic leadership, preparing the transition to a newer generation in power, reforming the economy and resolving domestic problems.

With half of Cuba’s farmland idle; monthly salaries averaging the equivalent of 15 dollars, woefully inadequate even in a subsidised economy; national transport near collapse; shortfalls in housing and food stocks, and a shoddy bureaucracy, the outlook is not good.

If Raul takes Cuba’s helm indefinitely, the number two spot of first vice president would almost certainly go to somebody outside the Castro family.

Former US Central Intelligence Agency analyst Brian Latell believes Raul is a “transition figure” who “will gain political strength to bring about the changes that were out of his reach” as provisional leader.

However, he cautioned, Raul, “like his brother, has no intention of opening up Cuba” in the political sense.

Most analysts predict Cuba’s upcoming changes will be largely economic.

Some believe Raul could copy China’s approach of opening the economy while keeping political control in the hands of the Communist Party — where Raul enjoys strong support.

In the 19 months since he took over as temporary leader, Raul Castro has made some timid adjustments in the economy but has promised bigger changes and has criticised the country’s “excessive prohibitions.” However, he has made it clear that everything will take place “within socialism,” and that the solutions to the country’s problems will come “little by little.” The pace of economic change may have to pick up to meet Cubans rising expectations, and high level of frustration.

Meanwhile, as long as he is able, Fidel will still loom large behind the political stage, especially through his press writings.—AFP